Monthly Archives: May 2013

“Swallowtail” has flown. My first ebook has been published on Smashwords and Amazon. This is my first foray into ePublishing after having had some 30 stories published on Literotica. I feel that I could have held on for a while longer, tinkering with it. But from my non-erotic writing, I know that a book is never finished; it’s only published. It was time.

Here is the blurb for “Swallowtail”:

An anonymous liaison with a young Goth princess. No demands. No strings. Perfect.

That’s what I thought at the time. Soon I realize that strings aren’t Dex’s thing. Ropes and cuffs perhaps, crops and floggers even, but no strings.

I learn that some pleasures come in unusual forms. I’ve never been averse to pleasure, but there are times I ask myself whether it’s worth the price of submission.

Click here to find “Swallowtail” on Smashwords or here to find it on Amazon.

One of the first things that I learned when I started writing professionally (not erotica, but less interesting writing), was to know your audience. Literotica, where I’ve published over 30 stories, provides a glimpse into what audiences might look like. If you’re unfamiliar with Literotica, users can optionally vote on stories and/or leave comments. The stories that have had the best response average one comment per 12 votes, but ordinarily you’re looking at 1 comment per 30 votes or more. Comments provide an insight into the reader’s likes and dislikes. It can also provide an indication of gender.

Before I started posting stories, I believed (as I think most of us would) that readers of erotica would likely be female. I should add that I distinguish between romance fiction and erotica, where the latter is more explicit. We’re talking about the explicit stuff here. I decided to test my assumption by going through all of the comments I’ve received over the years and checking the member’s profile for a gender identification. Admittedly, the Literotica member is not compelled to be honest. If they wish to do so, male readers can identify themselves as female and vice versa. I don’t know whether members deliberately mis-identify themselves, but it’s a possibility.

As I counted my results, I did not disregard comments by the same individual for multiple chapters of the same series. I figured that males and females would have the same opportunity to comment on multiple chapters of a series.

So here are the results for all types of stories (including erotic couplings, first time, group sex, anal, novels, and non-human):

It’s interesting to note that females and males were neck and neck until my review took me through a non-human series (about an incubus) that seemed to be favored by female readers and garnered a large number of repeat comments. These two factors may have skewed the results somewhat.

What did I learn?

Well, my assumption about a primarily female readership is probably wrong. It seems that men are a large and possibly largely unrecognized audience for erotica, possibly equal in size to women.

Will this change how I write?

Not really. Writing fiction that arouses women and men equally seems to me the greatest compliment.